FlowSavvy and Reclaim are powerful time management apps with diverse features designed to help you organize your time effectively. While they both automatically schedule your tasks into your calendar, they have differing priorities and will work better for different types of people. Reclaim has more integrations and is more enterprise-centered, whereas FlowSavvy is designed with the individual user in mind, prioritizing user-friendly design, mobile app functionality, and affordability. Let’s dive deeper into how these two auto-schedulers compare and what makes FlowSavvy the best Reclaim alternative.
Task and Event Features
Both Reclaim and FlowSavvy offer robust task creation features. However, FlowSavvy offers more control over your tasks. Here are some things you can do in FlowSavvy that you can’t do in Reclaim:
- Choose whether a task should be auto-scheduled or scheduled at a specific time. In Reclaim, tasks always start as flexible and then you can lock them in place later.
- Set a default amount of buffer before and after tasks, and override that amount on individual tasks. In Reclaim, you can only set a global buffer time that will be applied to all tasks.
- Quickly add tasks to your inbox and then come back and add details later to schedule them.
- Tasks in FlowSavvy can have the same robust repeat rules as events, and each occurrence can be edited individually (just like events), whereas Reclaim offers “habits”, which have a smaller set of repeat rule options and are less customizable than repeating tasks in FlowSavvy.
One notable shortfall with Reclaim is that you can’t create or edit events in Reclaim. The idea is that Reclaim is an interface to manage your tasks, and you’re supposed to manage your events in Google Calendar. FlowSavvy, on the other hand, can function as a standalone calendar that you can use to manage all your tasks and events, and it also integrates with your calendars.
Mobile App
A significant differentiator between FlowSavvy and Reclaim is FlowSavvy’s mobile app. Not only does it support 100% of the features of the web app, it adds even more like push notifications, direct subscriptions through the app stores, and widgets. We’ve designed FlowSavvy with a mobile-first approach since the beginning, and we’re proud to offer users the same simple UI regardless of which device they use to access it.
Reclaim, on the other hand, doesn’t have a dedicated mobile app at all. Instead, they encourage users to use Reclaim in their mobile browser or install the website on their home screen as a PWA, which doesn’t offer the same seamless experience as a dedicated mobile app.
FlowSavvy is the most fully-featured cross-platform auto-scheduler on the app stores. For a mobile auto-scheduler that’s easy to use and works just as well as on desktop, you just can’t beat FlowSavvy.
Auto-Scheduling
Reclaim’s auto-scheduling algorithm fits tasks into your schedule as soon as there’s space, which isn’t always realistic. For example, if you have 20 hours of work due in 5 days, Reclaim will slam you with a wall of work today and tomorrow. This may work some of the time, but front-loading like this often leads to an unreasonable schedule and can cause burnout by doing too much work all at once.
FlowSavvy, on the other hand, offers users the option to either “front-load” or “balance” their workload. The balanced option is an advanced algorithm that optimizes your schedule holistically and spreads your workload evenly across multiple days. This creates a more reasonable schedule and gives you a balanced amount of work and free time every day, which is a more sustainable approach to time-management.
Along with creating a more realistic schedule, FlowSavvy’s auto-scheduling algorithm is also lightning fast, reacting to every change you make and rebuilding your entire schedule for up to 8 weeks almost instantaneously, whereas Reclaim’s algorithm takes several seconds for even simple scheduling adjustments.
Integrations and Team Features
Reclaim shines when it comes to to-do list integrations and collaboration features. They offer free integrations with Raycast, Slack, Zoom, Google Calendar, and Google Tasks, and paid integrations with Todoist, Linear, Jira, Asana, and Clickup, which make it more suitable for coordinating tasks and schedules with team members. Reclaim also has unique features such as “Smart 1:1s” that adjust to you and your teammates’ availability, and booking links that allow teammates and clients to book time with you.
FlowSavvy, on the other hand, currently offers a 2-way sync with Google, iCloud, and Outlook calendars. While Reclaim offers some robust team features, we believe in doing one thing exceptionally well: providing a superior personal auto-scheduling experience. If team collaboration features are essential to you and you’re not satisfied with using the team features in the calendar services that FlowSavvy integrates with, Reclaim might be a better fit.
Other Unique Features
Reclaim and FlowSavvy differ in a few other ways that I’ll list here for convenience.
Reclaim:
- lets you decide whether your tasks are visible to teammates
- Statistics view
- optionally sync events from any calendar to your primary calendar to better reflect availability
- category color-coding
- Drag task end on schedule to adjust duration (we’ll build this in the future)
FlowSavvy:
- click or tap right on the schedule view to create events and tasks
- zoom in/out on schedule view
- more schedule view options (day, 4-day, week, and “auto” which adjusts the number of visible days based on screen size)
- ability to start the week on the current day so you’re always looking ahead instead of viewing days that have already passed and are no longer relevant to your planning
- tasks are automatically color-coded green, orange, or red, according to how close they are scheduled to their deadline, helping you track deadlines visually
- choice between dark and light mode
Pricing
We strive to offer excellent value at a fair price. FlowSavvy is available for $7 per month or $60 per year (varies slightly by region and app store) and it also has a robust free version that works for most people. Reclaim also offers a robust free version, and their cheapest premium tier costs $10 per month or $96 per year, so slightly more costly but not a big deal. We encourage you to try out both apps’ free versions and see which one fits your needs better.
Summary
Both Reclaim and FlowSavvy are powerful auto-schedulers capable of enhancing your productivity and making you feel like you’ve got your own personal assistant. If you need features tailored for teams, Reclaim could be a good fit for you, but if you’re looking for an auto-scheduler that prioritizes individuals and emphasizes ease-of-use, cross-platform accessibility, and value for money, FlowSavvy stands out as the best Reclaim alternative. Get started with FlowSavvy for free today and discover a new level of productivity!